Cisco MDS Series Reviews

I am using Cisco MDS in SAN environments for storage connections and server connections.

The product is very stable and performs well. During the update periods, the devices do not need to reload, ensuring constant availability. It is easy to set up and use.

Our company primarily uses Cisco MDS Series for fiber channel connectivity.

SAN switches in Cisco MDS Series are a valuable feature of the solution for our company.

The most valuable feature of the Cisco MDS Series is its reliability, support, and scalability.

Cisco MDS Series could improve by adding more gigahertz. However, they are doing this over time.

We deployed Cisco MDS Series in storage domains, which we use for 46 servers as a storage path in Active-Active Mode.

The most valuable feature of the Cisco MDS Series is performance and stability multipathing. The SAN Environment should be stable and require near-line performance. 

We use the solution in SAN environments for server connections.

It is a stable product. The solution doesn’t relapse during updates. The product is easy to use.

We use this solution to manage our storage and inner network solution.

Data Center Network Manager is good but it is not free and requires purchasing a separate license. It doesn't make sense to me - if you buy the switch the management software should be included with it.

Cisco MDS 9148 SAN switch model is the best product. It is highly reliable and at a low cost, easy to deploy, easy to upgrade, easy to configure and easy to administer. This gives effective performance when used for SAN switch connectivity between hosts and storage boxes. It supports reverse compatibility 4/8/16 Gbps of throughput. When configured in redundancy there is a 0% chance of a path missing between the host and storage array. It also supports short distance and long-distance ISL configuration without any issues. WebUI is simple and easy to understand.

Migration tasks were easy from two different geographies. There were no issues reported on the SAN switch of a path failure. Path failures are handled very effectively. ISL works well. The SAN switch database gets replicated within a fraction of a second. No need to do manual update on zone database. Its intelligent network services and traffic management helps to deploy virtual SAN technology. The quality of services and inter-virtual SAN routing help multiple departments in the organization get prioritized services to data accessibility. At an organization level, it helps to meet network security requirements of role based access based on AAA. It easy to integrate with LDAP, Active Directory. It supports FTP, SFTP, SSHv2, SNMPv3 and also supports AES and many more features.

The primary use case is as a standard SAN (single-site), and metro-SAN (10-15km between datacenters). Both types of switches, fixed and directors, are used.

There's no big choice in SAN, but if you have Cisco UCS blades, the choice is obvious.

MDs have good integration, a single point of management (DCNM), and support from the vendor. Also, CVD guides are very helpful in the design stage. They have the same CLI as on the Nexus models, which also helps in administering.